Between this point and the end of the Doctrine and Covenants, the pace moving across the historical setting picks up significantly. This is because JS’s revelatory output really began to be affected by events. The time between revelations increasingly widens, albeit irregularly, and so the remaining content relies on larger swaths of historical development for context. We can see this effect play out in the lesson schedule for the “Come, Follow Me” curriculum: the year 1831 takes up twelve lessons (a quarter of the whole course); 1832 takes up seven; 1833 takes up four (and a half); all of 1834 in just one (really just 1% of the whole course).
JS seems to shift in his revelatory approach between 1832 and 1834. We might ask why. And the fact of greater administrative concerns, or facing increasing hostility, or his personal projects multiplying, or his family’s demands growing—none of these offer a satisfactory answer, in my view. By 1834, JS had established a reliable pattern of turning to revelation in moments of difficulty. It would seem the occasions for revelation only intensify into 1834 and beyond, and yet the record of published and unpublished revelations offers only 5 instances of JS seeking a revelation.
One argument is that the Doctrine and Covenants revelations had done the work of routinizing the processes of dealing with concerns. It was because the revelations laid a groundwork for councils and conferences (not so much quorums by this point) that JS had immediate resources for answering situations. We’d never call the D&C revelations obsolete; but in a way, the revelations engaged in today’s business strategies of planned obsolenscence—each occasion for revelation providing a more thorough response than the occasion needed, thus paving the way for JS not to need to appeal to revelation as often.
We have at least one instance of a revelation encouraging less-frequent use of revelation: D&C 58 (August 1831), in which Saints from New York had arrived in Missouri to begin building the New Jerusalem, and the Lord reins their expectations slightly by directing the bishop, Edward Partridge, to manage this ingathering of new settlers on his own. “Wherefore, let them bring their families to this land, as they shall counsel between themselves and me.” (i.e., the decision and timing to relocate to Jackson County is the domain of the Lord and individual families, not that of church leaders like Partridge.) “For behold, it is not meet that I should command in all things” (i.e., it’s not appropriate for the bishop to seek a revelation through JS on each issue and each relocation that will arise). […] “But he that doeth not anything until he is commanded, and receiveth a commandment with a doubtful heart, and keepeth it with slothfulness, the same is damned.” In context, this is referring to requests for revelations through JS, not some general notion of the commandments of God and personal obedience. Partridge gets the message that the revelations, the kind that get recorded and compiled into the D&C, are not trivial or a vending machine. JS and other leaders are advised to do “many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness; for the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves.” Add to this admonition all the other schemes, routines, and structures the very same revelations were creating, and it’s fair to attribute JS’s decline in revelatory output being a designed outcome of the revelations themselves.
Mounting Antagonism and Conciliar Reform
Leading up to the revelations of 1834 (D&C 102–106 plus two unpublished), the Saints in Missouri had experienced severe antagonism. Earlier residents responded to the sudden influx of primarily Yankee settlers with harsh and untenable demands. JS had received D&C 101 describing the redemption of Zion and how that was supposed to occur. The current state of affairs in Missouri had included Mormons beings kicked off their own land and JS considering with other church leaders taking some kind of action to resume the gathering effort and establishing the city of New Jerusalem as directed by the revelations. The High Council (only one was contemplated; not yet a concept of multiple) was discussed in D&C 42 as a method for handling disputes within the community and was modeled on the Old Testament pattern of governance. (When Moses had become overwhelmed with adjudicating disputes among the Children of Israel, his father-in-law Jethro recommended he establish a hierarchy of officers to handle issues; Moses delegated his high priesthood duties in a distributed fashion.) Between 1831 and 1834, the High Council was comprised of only ordained high priests, and no other distinctions in priesthood offices were really maintained at that time. The council also convened ad hoc. In practice, the ad hoc council meetings themselves engendered some disputes, presenting JS with questions of how to reform and improve the church’s conciliar model.
So, these two key pieces in the setting of early 1834 provide us with our important contextual elements for the revelations that ensue: a worsening situation in Missouri and a squeaky conciliar model in need of some grease.
High Council at “Seat of Church Government”
JS had received a revelation in November 1831 instructing the church to observe a “court” of the president of the high priesthood (D&C 107–A). On February 17, 1834, high priests in Kirtland met at JS’s house to proceed with the “President’s Church Council” as defined in the 1831 revelation. This was a solemn occasion: from the original minutes, it’s clear the men regarded the event as a restorative one every bit as significant as the visitation of John the Baptist or the founding meeting of the church. This was to be a restoration of Moses’s conciliar order of high priesthood. The twelve high priests (which marks an interesting original conception that changed with the more Protestant/New Testament focus after JS’s death, twelve here being associated with Israelite high priests and not Christian apostles) were selected as “Counsellors” to the presidency of the high priesthood (Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, and Frederick G. Williams):
- Joseph Smith Sr.
- John Smith
- Joseph Coe
- John Johnson
- Martin Harris
- John S. Carter
- Jared Carter
- Oliver Cowdery
- Samuel H. Smith
- Orson Hyde
- Sylvester Smith
- Luke Johnson
So, trick question: Who were the original Twelve in church history? would not be the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. But that’s a technicality for Trivial Pursuit.
JS told this group he would show them “the order of Councils in ancient days as shown to him by vision,” the “law by which to govern the Council in the Church of Christ.” The rest involves some discussion of trying cases in the church, mediating accusations, and rendering true and righteous judgments.
During this organization meeting, many questions were raised, which JS determined to consider and incorporate into the official record. The council voted unanimously that JS “make all necessary corrections by the spirit of inspiration hereafter.” The next day, JS worked on amendments to the minutes, producing revised minutes that he presented to a council of 62 members of the priesthood the following day. His changes both deleted and added material to the original minutes. The 19 February council voted to accept the revised minutes as “a form, and constitution of the high Council of the Church of Christ hereafter.” JS then pronounced the high council duly organized after the ancient order.
The major conciliar reform that emerged from the revised minutes, which were published in the D&C as § 102, was establishing a “high Council at the seat of the general government of the Church” and allowing for ad hoc councils of high priests elsewhere to continue as temporary and subordinate councils. Any determinations by those ad hoc councils could be appealed to the high council at the seat of general church government, what was soon called the “standing high council,” but no further.
Brigham Young appealed to the Nauvoo High Council, the last standing high council of the church, in bringing charges against Sidney Rigdon in 1844 after the death of JS. After Rigdon’s excommunication, Young brought conciliar items to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, which he renamed the Council of the Twelve. In 1847, Young selected and nominated counselors to re-form the First Presidency, and thereafter, convened meetings of the Council of the First Presidency and Twelve Apostles. His pattern has continued; the original design of D&C 102 has since been extrapolated to the stake high councils and not reflected in the councils of the First Presidency and Twelve—an important ecclesiastical shift since 1834.
“Must Needs Come by Power”
The situation in Missouri had become full-blown persecutory against the Saints. Violence and the threat of continued mob attacks had frightened the Saints enough to write to JS pleading for help. They knew they had the advantage of numbers. If more could come, they could defend their lands. D&C 101 had responded to some of these calls for help by placing some measure of blame on the discord within the church—had they listened to the Lord more precisely, had they truly internalized the Zion ideal and cared for the poor, they would not have been left to themselves so much. But, D&C 101 also promised that Zion would be redeemed and warned that the Saints would need to prepare to avenge the Lord of his enemies. An impending chastening and Abrahamic test would separate the wheat from the chaff, so the truly committed and faithful Saints needed to ready themselves for some challenges to come, even the possibility of death.
Days after the formal organization of the High Council, JS received D&C 103, a revelation answering the major problem of the Missouri situation: what to do in the face of the blatant persecution, not just the internal discord within the church. This revelation called for the Saints to organize an army and go to Missouri to reclaim the land, however, some things remained vague. The “redemption of Zion must needs come by power,” it said. What kind of power? The use of force? Some miraculous intervention like when God brought plagues upon Egypt?
There’s a twist ending that’s coming after this revelation—this army, the “Camp of Israel” as they called themselves (“Zion’s Camp” as 20th-century folks called them, for some reason), will organize and march toward Independence, Missouri, almost making it before turning right around and abandoning the mission. No conflict, no battle, no land, nothing. Some members of the Camp get ticked off at JS, big time. The seeds of a deep resentment that culminate in JS fleeing Kirtland four years later are planted during this seemingly aimless march across the state. JS’s own cousin, Sylvester, a member of the High Council no less, almost goes to blows with JS over this. The Lord will tell them in D&C 105 four months later that the redemption of Zion will come by “the endowment of power.” That’s the twist: by power, the Lord meant an endowment, something directly associated with finishing the House of the Lord back in Kirtland. It’s as if the men of the Camp of Israel are hearing, You thought this Abrahamic test was going to be about fighting; well, you’re spared just as Isaac was delivered from sacrifice by the angel and the ram in the thicket; you’re not going to see battle, but you proved your willingness to obey the Lord; and now, it’s the endowment of power that awaits you—by “must needs come by power” was referring to a solemn assembly, an endowment from on high, a heavenly outpouring to precede the full gathering of Israel.
The Lord pulled a classic Abrahamic test sort of move, and in one manner of speaking, they failed it just as Abraham did. You see, when presented with a commandment to murder his own son, Abraham was supposed to say to even God that this was too much, that it violated the grand fundamental of all doctrine and commandment, to love, and therefore (as Lehi puts it so excellently), God (relative to Abraham) had ceased to be God; God had contravened his own godhood with such a demand. What would Abraham have received from God had he done this? Certainly more than a ram in the thicket. In the case of the Camp of Israel, they had already received a commandment in D&C 98 to “raise a banner of peace” and to face continued persecution with grace and patience and forgiveness; they were told specifically not to make war as a higher law, and the Lord even set them up with battle and war as a commandment in D&C 103, having already told them an Abrahamic test was coming! No matter how we read the Abrahamic test, the main point was that Abraham was being asked something by God that ran against God’s stated commandments. And still, they marched to Missouri, doing line infantry drills and musket practice along the way. I wonder what may have happened had they answered the Lord with what he outlined in D&C 101 as the righteous response: unity, willingness to be peaceful and not vengeful, and go to Missouri to bring those Saints back home to safety in Kirtland. After all, the majority of Saints in Missouri were there in the first place because others in Kirtland wouldn’t consecrate their land and property for the care of the poor.
1834 was a year of testing, which we usually interpret as Latter-day Saints in Kirtland and Missouri proving their valiance. Sure, there certainly was a kind of loyalty pledge that came out of the Camp of Israel that proved to JS whom he could trust. (At least until 1837. But that’s for another post.) That trust was largely short-lived. The real value of 1834, in my view, was how it refocused the Saints on what they were already seeking: to build the House of the Lord, invite everyone into it, and experience the heavenly embrace in a solemn assembly and endowment of power from on high. They didn’t need land aplenty in Missouri or Jerusalem or wherever. They needed only each other and the desire to unify around meeting the Lord in his holy house. They needed only to aspire, truly and really and authentically, to bear Holiness to the Lord in all their civic life.